He had just bitten off half a sausage, juice dribbling down his chin, when he spotted Silas in the room.
“Masters! Good morning to you. Have a seat,” he proclaimed around a mouth full of chewed up meat. “Help yourself.” He motioned to the sideboard laden with food. “Eggs, sausage, kippers. The sticky rolls are marvelous. Better than anything you will find in Town.”
Nodding, Silas helped himself to a plate before sitting himself across from Kittinger and snapping his napkin onto his lap, deliberately not remarking on the absence of Mercy Kittinger, difficult though it was to refrain from inquiring about her whereabouts.
Kittinger tapped the paper sitting on the table beside his plate. “The Moscow circus is in London. I imagine there is much fanfare. Can’t believe you’re here instead of there.”
“I was compelled to leave the city,” Silas reminded him.
Kittinger shot him an uneasy glance, clearly still distrusting the extent of Silas’s forgiveness.
“How long might you be staying with us?” The question was posed mildly enough. Kittinger did not even look at him as he voiced it.
Silas shrugged. “For a little while. The country air is a nice change.”
Kittinger focused on his food, piling his eggs atop a slice of toast and then taking a messy bite. Chewing, he spoke around his food. “I appreciate you being so understanding about this situation. Your . . . forgiveness in this matter is most admirable.”
“Situation,” Silas mused. “That is one way to describe it. Not how I would describe it, but certainly it is a way.”
“How would you describe it?” he asked casually, clearly fishing for a glimpse into Silas’s motivations and whether Silas might still thrash him to a pulp for sending his sister to steal back the voucher from him.
“Theft. Plain and simple. I would describe it as that.”
Kittinger chuckled uneasily. “No, no. I would not say that.”
“Would you not? That is precisely what happened, and the only reason you’re sitting here leisurely eating your breakfast and not somewhere else in a great deal of pain, is because of your sister.”
“My sister,” Kittinger echoed with a curling lip as though the notion of his sister doing anything beneficial astounded him.
“Indeed. You can thank her.”
“Thank her?” Kittinger still looked bewildered. Shaking his head, he suddenly stopped the motion and said, “Oh. Wait. You . . . like her.” He spoke slowly, as though this realization was just dawning on him.
Silas tensed, not enjoying Kittinger’s incredulous and faintly insulting manner.
Kittinger grinned and continued. “You like my sister. That is where this magnanimity springs from. Not a sense of charity and compassion at all. Oh, this is rich!” Instead of becoming outraged or even adopting an air of concern he looked vaguely . . . calculating. He immediately appeared to be plotting how such a thing might work to his advantage. Of course.
His objective was not to protect his sister from the likes of Silas Masters—as a good brother ought to do, as one would expect a good brother to do. No. Bede Kittinger was looking out for himself.
Silas chose not to even acknowledge the allegation. To deny it would only make him look exactly as Kittinger insisted—enamored of his sister. Whether he was in fact enamored . . . and that was nonsense.
So instead of denial he went with intimidation. It felt like the right tactic in dealing with a coward like Kittinger. “Do you know what happens to people who cheat me?” he asked in a low voice, his finger tapping the edge of his fork. “Or steal from me?”
Kittinger’s smile slipped. He shook his head emphatically, his eyes as round as the buttered potatoes on his plate.
Silas drank deeply from his coffee cup, taking his time replying. “No one has done so in years. Not since I was a lad in Seven Dials, surviving day to day with my wits . . . and fists.” He turned his attention to a sausage on his plate, cutting it in half. “Do you know what that’s like?” He looked up at Kittinger, noticing that he had not even dressed for the day yet. The man still wore his silk dressing robe. Silas laughed lightly and shook his head. “Of course, you don’t know.”
Kittinger had no response for that.
Silas glanced around the table with its vacant seats. “Everyone else has already breakfasted?” he asked mildly.
“People here rouse themselves at an unholy hour,” Kittinger chattered, appearing happy for the change in subject. “They eat and then they’re out the door to their tasks.”
“Your sisters . . .”
“Yes, even them. Well, mostly Mercy. Grace busies herself with the pianoforte and whatever lessons Mercy has assigned to her. She rarely has chores outside of the house.”
Silas nodded slowly. That already fit with what he knew about Mercy Kittinger. She herself would work the land while she assigned the lofty, highbrow tasks to young Grace for what she viewed as the betterment of her sister. She was selfless that way.
Is that what I was to her? A mission of grand self-sacrifice?
He scowled as he buttered his toast with vigor. He did not like that thought. Not at all. Mercy had seemed genuinely to enjoy their night together. She had even seemed amenable for a repeat of it in the orangery—even if she had said otherwise in his chamber last night. He did not—could not—think it had all been a miserable sacrifice on her part that she had to endure. He took a bite of toast, hoping to cover the sudden sour taste coating his mouth.
“I do not know what your plans are for the rest of the day, but I thought to take a ride. Would you care to join me? It looks to be a fine day. There is little else to do here.”
Silas looked up from his plate. “That would be acceptable.” He would like to observe this land that meant so much to Mercy Kittinger in daylight hours and see all there was to it. It had to be beautiful country indeed to make her risk herself and resort to crime and seduction to get it back.
He told himself he was riding with Kittinger not because he hoped to come across Mercy again. He was not here to rekindle what they had started in London, contrary to what had happened last night.
She was a respectable country lady. That was not the type of woman he chose for dalliances. His purpose here was to establish that they had no ties binding them. He was not here to create ties that would bind them.
She said it would take a fortnight to determine that.
Over the coming days, he would not forget that. He would remember his purpose here and that it was not to get beneath her skirts again.
The sun shone brightly, warding off the day’s chill as Silas settled atop his mount and nudged the beast forward, following Kittinger out of the yard.
Silas glanced at the house, spotting the housekeeper, Gladys, cleaning the front windows. They passed the girl, Elsie, carrying eggs in her apron toward the house. She nodded them a greeting.
It was lush green everywhere. So much so that it blinded the eyes. Spring was here and the countryside was humming with life and vitality. It was a gloriously bucolic scene.
As someone who spent the whole of his life in London, Silas could appreciate it. He could see why Mercy loved this land so much.
Kittinger was dressed to the nines as though he was going for a ride in Hyde Park and not out and about on his country farm.